


Left Shoe for Luck

by gayalondiel



Series: watsons_woes July 2011 challenge [13]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-28
Updated: 2011-07-28
Packaged: 2017-10-21 21:45:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayalondiel/pseuds/gayalondiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft insists that Sherlock and John observe superstitions on their special day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Left Shoe for Luck

**Author's Note:**

> watsons_woes LJ community posted a daily prompt challenge for July 2011 wherein you had to respond within 24 hours. These are my responses, so they are a little hasty and unpolished. Also damned weird.
> 
> July 13: Superstition
> 
> Disclaimer: The Holmes characters fall in the public domain: This version falls under the creative control of Messers Moffatt and Gatiss, and the BBC. No ownership is implied or inferred. This is done for love only.
> 
> AN: Yeah, not original and I can’t write humour very well. I’m tired! Tomorrow will be more up to scratch and hopefully a return to my accustomed angst and character death obsession. Possibly.

The coin sparkled from the centre of the proffered palm. It had clearly been polished recently. The owner of both hand and sixpenny bit stared at Sherlock, resolute. Sherlock stared back.

"I don't know how you found out, unless your ridiculous assistant tailed me when I went to make the appointment, in person, so that there were no emails to intercept, no phone calls to hack..."

"There is nothing at all ridiculous about Miss Jones."

"...but you are not welcome, you are not taking photographs for mother, and I am most certainly not wearing your bloody sixpence in my shoe!"

Mycroft placed the sixpence carefully on the coffee table and leaned backwards in his chair.

"Sherlock. You need witnesses, I am willing to take that role. Mummy will be most seriously displeased if there are not a few photographs when you tell her the happy news. Most importantly, this is the sixpence that she wore in her shoe on her wedding day, given to her by her mother. When she still had hopes of me being anything other than a bachelor for life, she gave me the sixpence for my future bride. Now..." he smiled. "Now it is right that it should come to you. And you are undoubtedly the bride."

"I, the bride?" Sherlock began to sputter. "I am not the bride... There is no bride, Mycroft! There isn't even a relationship!"

"If not, why this charade?"

"For one thing, brother dear, if I should be injured, I want someone that isn't _you_ making decisions on my behalf. Likewise John and his perpetually inebriated sister."

"Hey!" The upstairs door slammed open and John thundered down the stairs. "You take that back, right now."

"Your words, John."

"She's _my_ sister. I get to say things like that; you don't. And you... only said that so I'd stop listening in, didn't you?" Sherlock smirked and John gave him an exasperated look before nodding to Mycroft and settling beside Sherlock on the sofa. "So what's this sixpence business?"

Mycroft picked up the coin again and turned it over in his fingers.

"Surely you know the rhyme, John? Something old, something new..."

"Something borrowed, something blue," John completed, looking puzzled.

"And a silver sixpence in her shoe," added Sherlock. "Commonly omitted now, probably due to the scarcity of sixpences, but that is the full rhyme."

"Nevertheless," said Mycroft, handing the coin to John for inspection, "Mummy would be so pleased if I could report that this, at least, had been the way she wished it."

"You're not putting it in your shoe, Sherlock?"

"No!" Sherlock glared at both of them, no mean feat as they were on opposite sides of him. "Even if I believed in ridiculous superstitious nonsense, you will note that neither of us fulfils the criteria _'her'_."

"Are you saying you're not going to be my bride?" The full force of Sherlock's glare now fixed on John, with the result that he could not see Mycroft's twinking eyes.

"Most definitely," he replied. John held the coin up to the light, avoiding Mycroft's eyes for fear of laughing.

"All right," he said with a sigh. "I already do the cooking, the cleaning, the shopping, the endless nagging..."

"Case in point," grumbled Sherlock.

"I guess I can do this too." John slipped the coin in his pocket and stood up. "We'll need to go in half an hour, I'm going to put my suit on. I'll need... Sherlock, that tie you bought last week, the blue diamond one. Find it for me to wear, and then find something old for us to take. _Not_ the skull! That’ll cover everything Mycroft, we need another witness, Sherlock wanted to grab people off the street. Would you ask Mrs Hudson if she'll do the honours?"

"Of course," replied Mycroft. He strode from the room and John turned towards the stairs, but Sherlock caught him by the hand and pulled him back.

"John," he said, his voice soft and strangely clear, "John, are you sure about this?"

John felt a completely unexpected surge of emotion, and smiled. Sherlock smiled back tentatively, and John surprised himself by raising their hands and kissing Sherlock lightly on the knuckles. Sherlock gave a little intake of breath, not quite a gasp but not anything else. John dropped his hand and turned to his room.

"Are you really going to put that coin in your shoe?" Sherlock's familiar sarcasm followed him up the stairs. Halfway up the flight, John turned and grinned back at him.

"Yes," he replied flatly. "You're going to be my husband. God knows, I'm going to need all the luck I can get." He continued to his room and was closing the door when the voice floated up to him again.

"Left shoe for luck, John."


End file.
